The Opportune Moment
by YT1
Summary: The rise and fall of a Ventrue spy, in her own words.


This is a bio for a _Vampire_ character. _Vampire_ belongs to White Wolf. The actual Miranda Cross is a character from _Ruse_ by CrossGen Comics. 'Nuff said.

The Opportune Moment

My name is Miranda Cross. I was born in Calcutta in 1874. I did not take my surname from my father, a young officer of the British Royal Navy who fathered me on one of his Indian servant women, but from my sire, mentor and husband, Horatio Cross. Ah, I see you've heard of him. It's not true what they say about him. The truth is part of my story. A later part. Since you are interested, I will tell you of the long and complicated road that brought us together.

My father tired of my mother a few months before I was born – or perhaps he had discovered that she was pregnant and wanted to avoid scandal. In any case, he cast her out, and her family disowned her. With her virtue gone, she had no hope of a decent marriage. In fact, she had little hope to speak of at all.

My mother spent the rest of her life working as a servant or menial laborer for one person or another. Occasionally, when she was desperate and had no other way to make money, she was somebody's whore. Yes, "whore" is a harsh word, but it was a harsh life and there is no point in speaking delicately about it.

I know I was a burden on my mother, because she could barely make a living and I was a reminder of her shame. Even so, she loved me and provided for me as best she could. She even named me Mirium, which means "wished-for child." I changed it when I moved to England with Horatio.

When I was seven I helped bring in money by working as a house servant for a teacher – a half-breed, like myself – who ran a small school for the sons of middle-caste families in his courtyard. He was literate in Hindi and fluent in English, and instructed his students in both. I saw this teacher as living proof that I might just get out of my miserable situation, if only I were smart and learned enough.

I hung around the courtyard during lessons as much as I could and paid attention to everything. The teacher caught on to me after the first week or so, but he did not scold me or chase me off. I overheard him telling his wife that I should be given chores in and around the courtyard while lessons were going on. A few days later, he gave me a slate and some chalk, like the students had, so I could practice writing. He told me I reminded him of his little girl who had died in a fire years ago.

In this way I learned while working at the teacher's house: at home I would practice writing in Hindi and English on my slate. For the first time in my life, I had a dream to follow. Someday I would make enough money to get my mother and I out of the slums. That was what I told her when she asked what I was doing with the slate and the chalk. I remember that she nodded and smiled sadly. She never told me it was a stupid idea, that a woman could never become something as prestigious as a teacher or a scribe. I used to think that she hoped I would succeed, but I think she was just letting me cling to the only comforting illusion I had.

Mother took sick when I was ten. She spent the better part of two months in a delirium, or in uneasy sleep. What was left of her beauty after a decade of hardship was swiftly eliminated by the disease. By the end she was a pitiful, frail little thing of skin stretched over bone. In her last hour she was lucid enough to tell me, in weak whispers, about my father and how he had used her ill. She said she loved me and apologized for bringing me into such a miserable life. With that, she died. I pulled the tattered blanket over her face and swore that one day, I would kill my father.

The teacher took me in after that. I worked in his house as before but now I lived there, too. He and his wife treated me well, and gave me a good _sari_ and a silver bracelet – this one I'm wearing here – when I left at age fourteen. I went to work in my father's house as a servant, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take revenge on him. I had a knife and I had learned some very basic anatomy by watching a Muslim butcher in the marketplace as he slaughtered sheep and goats. Though a slit throat would be less painful than my father deserved, it would prevent him from crying out, and I would be able to get away afterward.

This was another plan of mine that never came to fruition. What I did instead was far more satisfying. Not a month after I started working in my father's house, he took up with an English woman – another man's wife, the other servants whispered. This gave me a new idea. Instead of killing my father, I would ruin him.

Most of those who employ servants seem to be under the impression that they are not only invisible; they are deaf, dumb and blind as well, unless it suits the employer's purpose of the moment that the servant be otherwise. I took advantage of my invisibility and learned all I could about my father's mistress. Her husband, I discovered, was a powerful man in the British East India Company. She and my father exchanged letters, which he kept concealed under the false bottom of his bedside table drawer. One day I stole the letters, and I read some of them. I found more than enough evidence to incriminate them both – if I got it to the right people.

The next day I went to the local offices of the British East India Company with the packet of letters hidden under my _sari_, the good one that the teacher and his wife had given me. My heart was pounding and my stomach fluttering with fear, but I was excited too. Not just because I would finally achieve my goal – there was something thrilling about having this secret, too, and having gotten it by my own wits.

I got into the office through the servants' entrance at the back, and no one questioned me. Inside, I asked a servant who was sweeping the floor where I could find the office of the man I was looking for. I looked and acted like I belonged, and she was busily engaged in her task, so she did not think to be suspicious, and she answered me. Then I went upstairs to the office, using the servants' hidden stairs and passageways. Since they did not go directly into the office, I had to go directly into the front room and get past the secretary.

The secretary looked up from his desk when I came in. He asked me rather curtly what I was doing there. In answer, I took the packet of letters out of my _sari_ and held it up and said, "I must see Mr. Wooster. I have something very urgent to tell him."

I don't know why the secretary didn't just throw me out – I think it was because of the strangeness of the situation, and my own desperation-driven force of personality. He paled a little and nodded before getting up to open the door and announce me to his master. I pushed past him before he was finished, so the man would not have time to throw me out.

He turned purple with rage when I told him that he was being cuckolded – I should have just given him the letters and let them speak for themselves. I saved myself by holding them out to him, showing no fear. He blinked, took them and sat down at his desk to read. I stood there for a long time while he leafed through the letters. His face was blank and serious: I could not read his thoughts behind his expression. Eventually he looked up, thanked me in a hollow voice and told his secretary to give me a sum of money that amounted to more than I'd seen in my whole life until then. The secretary did so, and showed me out.

I gave notice at my father's the next day and went back to work for the teacher and his wife, who needed the help and welcomed me back. Less than a week later, the scandal broke out. I heard that my father had either been discharged or resigned his commission (the rumors disagreed on this point) and returned to England. That was in 1890. Years later I heard that he died of an opium overdose – said to be unintentional, but nobody who knows the story believes that – in the spring of 1892. It was a job well done.

Horatio tracked me down a month later. He came by after sunset. I opened the gate for him. Imagine my surprise when this handsome man asked if he could speak to Mirium! I identified myself before I realized that this stranger might mean me harm. He didn't, of course. He had a long discussion with me, and then a shorter one with the teacher and his wife. It ended with me accepting his offer to become his pupil. There was no question of my refusing. I wanted to go with him more than I'd ever wanted anything. Horatio had impressive powers of persuasion, even by Ventrue standards.

At some point in all this he'd told my guardians about what I'd done, so I didn't have to explain it myself when I gave them the money Wooster had given me.

My new patron was a dealer of Indian art and artifacts. It was a lucrative business, since there were many people back in England who wanted a little taste of the colonies. Horatio also happened to be the top spy for the Ventru in Calcutta. But he didn't tell me that until I'd been with him for a year. I'd already suspected by then that he wasn't human, though it was beyond me to figure out his true nature, since I had never heard any vampire stories.

During the ten years of my apprenticeship, Horatio gave me not only what the Victorian English considered a good education, but substantially more. I learned how to read people and manipulate them, how to talk and how to listen, how to find what I wanted and pull the right strings to get it. He trained me to be a master diplomat and spy, like himself. Horatio also taught me about the Others, the vampires, werewolves, mages, spirits and other creatures that the civilized world was already trying to disbelieve out of existence. He taught me what he knew of their complicated alliances, histories, traditions and politics – all I would need to know to follow in his footsteps.

Horatio took a ship back to England in late 1899 to see his superiors for a new assignment. I went with him, and as we were rounding the Cape of Good Hope he made me two proposals, both of which I accepted. We were married on December 31st of that year, and on the stroke of midnight that brought in the new century, he Embraced me. Horatio had _such_ a flair for drama.

For a long time we lived (as it were) quite happily together, serving as spies and diplomats for our clan. But in the early 1980s, when there was a succession dispute among the Ventrue, things started to go south. They say Horatio was in on a conspiracy to assassinate those who now hold power in the clan: as I told you, that isn't true. Horatio simply backed the wrong faction. I'd told him it was a bad idea. Because of that rare instance of bad judgment, he was eliminated. And I barely escaped with my life.

Ever since then I have lived on the run, getting by on my wits, using all the arts my husband taught me. Since nobody has come after me for quite some time now, I suppose my destruction is not a high priority for the clan leaders. Maybe they think I'm powerless and no threat to them: maybe they value my talents and think I will come back and serve them. Maybe they have forgotten about me, as my father forgot about my mother when he cast her out. But _I_ will not forget – and I will wait as long as I must, for the opportune moment.


End file.
